The Walking Wounded
How Masculine Wounds Rob Us Of Our Potential
Men are the walking wounded.
Each of us bears a scar we either cannot find or refuse to acknowledge.
And because of this, we are doomed to live a repetitive cycle of loss and gain and loss again.
Always in a consistent cycle of playing clean up and starting over.
Always chasing that thing that gets us away from whatever reality is at our front doorstep.
That is, unless we enter the wounds we carry, call them by their real name, and stare the dragon in the mouth.
I don’t say this to regurgitate what pop-psych gurus on social media have already been saying about healing your inner child, but from first-hand experience. I’ve been living the same life for almost 5 years. Never really moving forward, never falling back.
I’d do well for a bit, maybe get a promotion at my job, string a few consistent months in the gym together, save up a bit of cash, and when the time came to go to the next level, I’d inevitably self-destruct and end up back at square one.
Maybe I would go on a drunken bender and total my car, making it impossible for me to commute (actually happened). Maybe I’d start an inappropriate relationship with my boss and get fired because I wasn’t willing to go public about it (actually happened). Or I’d lose an incredibly lucrative job at a prestigious company because I couldn’t get myself to perform after killing it for my first few months (actually happened not too long ago)
In short, things would get good and then I would get in my own way. Then things would get bad, I’d grind my way back up to zero, feel good about myself, and then the cycle would begin all over again.
This is just a brief run down of my last few years, but my experiences are not at all unique. Men all over, including you reading this right now, are either living in ignorance of or consistently fudging up the very things that would bring you to the highest level.
Thinking to yourself every day “Why can’t I just get my shit together” before inevitably falling back into whatever escapist habit you’ve adopted to avoid feeling the hurt. To avoid what I’ve written this whole essay about.
Your Woundedness.
I recently finished a book called Wild At Heart by John Eldredge. The book explores themes behind masculine wounds and how men lose their ability to live out their fullest God-given potential due to their inability to process their wounds.
“Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound.” - John Elderedge.
The book goes into incredible depth on how the wound is generally given, its relevance to God, and how the original man ‘Adam’s own story within the bible is a striking parallel to how men have handled the wound they were given.
By ignoring the wounds we have been given, we are doomed to live out a set of behaviors that will prevent us from reaching our highest potential. Furthermore, most men have been wounded so long, and have explored the wound so little, that they are clueless to the extent to which it impacts them.
Enter the wound, and you will break the chains.
Enter the wound, and you will find your authentic self.
Enter the wound, and you will set yourself free.
Breaking the Chains:
To break the chains that bind you to the place you’re trying to escape, you must first acknowledge there are chains in the first place.
The hardest part of entering your wound as a man is admitting the wound exists. That your wings have been injured for so long and you haven't been flying properly. This becomes even more difficult to do when you’ve spent so much of your time PRETENDING you aren’t wounded.
Not picking up what I’m laying down?
Why haven’t you written that book yet? Why haven’t you gone back to the gym? How come every time your girlfriend/wife brings a problem to your attention you shut down and deflect instead of speaking your truth and handling the issue? Why won’t you apply for a new job? Why won’t you do all of the things you desire to do?
Because somewhere along the line, someone or something set into your mind that you’re not man enough to do it.
You took an arrow to the center of your heart and written on that arrow were the words “Not Enough”.
Maybe your father abused you or called you a fag for having emotions. Or your mother turned you into her surrogate husband and only showed you affection when you followed her demands to a tee. Maybe you weren’t as athletic as the other boys or the girls in school never liked you. For many the wound is delivered by something far more horrid and sinister that I don’t need to spell out here. The wound was given and the message bound you to something you haven’t escaped.
I’m here to tell you, that the wound was a lie.
You ‘not being man enough’ is a lie. You ‘not being worthy’ is a lie. You ‘not good enough to be loved’ is a lie.
When you listen to dialogue in your mind, track what the voices of fear and doubt say. Ask yourself how long has that script been playing over and over in your mind, and whose voice is it. Rarely is the voice ours, but it belongs to the person or thing that delivered the wound in the first place.
Once you expose this lie to the light, the chains will be broken.
The next step will be to remove the false persona we have created as a result of the wound we were given.
Finding Your Authentic Self
Who is the man that exists under all of the things you believe you cannot be?
What is he capable of? What can he make of himself? What would he be known for?
Right now, in your woundedness, you’re living under a mask. Playing a character that is either avoiding or over-compensating the painful elephant in the room. A character that doesn’t believe he’s good enough to become a top-seller at his job, so he sabotages by not making enough outbound calls to clients by the end of the day. A character who doesn’t believe he deserves a good woman so he plays the hookup game instead of seeing all the red flags and waiting by the sidelines for a good catch. Or, conversely, he believes his self-worth only comes from money or the women he has conquered, using this ‘excess’ to continue the facade that he’s okay. That he, a magnificent exemption, hasn’t been wounded.
Your real self is hiding beneath all of that bullshit. It’s right there, waiting to be seen.
This is also why self-help seldom works for you. Why you consume so much of it to no avail, because the ‘self’ you’re trying to help isn’t even the authentic version of you. He’s a phony, a fugazi charlatan whose only reason for existence is due to your inability to deal with your trauma.
When you enter the wound, when you sit with the pain and the hurt, you see your wounded self as you are. And then, you see yourself as you can be. The onion layers of fake persona slough off almost effortlessly, because you no longer need to pretend or hide as a defense mechanism.
Your ‘real self’ is something you discover by removing everything you are not (the lies), not by adding fake layers of persona on top of each other.
Now, unburdened by breaking the chains and no longer needing to pretend or hide, you are set free
Being Free as A Man
Being Free as a Man doesn’t mean being free from burdens or hardships, it means you are free to embrace and accept them.
When you are no longer weighed down with the pain and anguish of the wound dealt to you, when you break free from the false narrative living in your head, when set down the mask you’ve been hiding behind for so long – you are met with the most surprising wellspring of energy.
A gameness to embrace the struggle.
A willingness to step into the fire and stare the dragon in the mouth, whatever that may be.
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I loved this article.
I think you greatly captured the essence of the wounded ego inside of a man, and how trauma/self-destructive behavior can impair their say to say lives/activities.
Being able to be in tune with your emotions/needs is key to accepting that you are an imperfect individual and a huge step in taking the necessary steps to heal and grow. I can’t wait to read what you write next.